Homicide A Year on the Killing Streets

Chapter One Tuesday, January 19 Pulling one hand from the warmth of a pocket, Jay Landsman squats down to grab the dead man's chin, pushing the head to one side until the wound becomes visible as a small, ovate hole, oozing red and white. "Here's your problem," he said. "He's got a slow leak." "A leak?" says Pellegrini, picking up on it. "A slow one." "You can fix those." "Sure you can," Landsman agrees. "They got these home repair kits now . . ." "Like with tires." "Just like with tires," Landsman says. "Comes with a patch and everything else you need. Now a bigger wound, like from a thirty-eight, you're gonna have to get a new head. This one you could fix." Landsman looks up, his face the very picture of earnest concern. Sweet Jesus, thinks Tom Pellegrini, nothing like working murders with a mental case. One in the morning, heart of the ghetto, half a dozen uniforms watching their breath freeze over another dead manwhat better time and place for some vintage Landsman, delivered in perfect deadpan until even the shift commander is laughing hard in the blue strobe of the emergency lights. Not that a Western District midnight shift is the world's toughest audience; you don't ride a radio car for any length of time in Sector 1 or 2 without cultivating a diseased sense of humor. "Anyone know this guy?" asks Landsman. "Anyone get to talk to him?" "Fuck no," says a uniform. "He was ten-seven when we got here." Ten-seven. The police communication code for "out of service" artlessly applied to a human life. Beautiful. Pellegrini smiles, content in the knowledge that nothing in this world can come between a cop and his attitude. "Anyone go through his pockets?" asks Landsman. "Not yet." "Where the fuck are his pockets?" "He's wearing pants underneath the sweatsuit." Pellegrini watches Landsman straddle the body, one foot on either side of the dead man's waist, and begin tugging violently at the sweatpants. The awkward effort jerks the body a few inches across the sidewalk, leaving a thin film of matted blood and brain matter where the head wound scrapes the pavement. Landsman forces a meaty hand inside a front pocket. "Watch for needles," says a uniform. "Hey," says Landsman. "Anyone in this crowd gets AIDS, no one's gonna believe it came from a fucking needle." The sergeant pulls his hand from the dead man's right front pocket, causing perhaps a dollar in change to fall to the sidewalk. "No wallet in front. I'm gonna wait and let the ME roll him. Somebody's called the ME, right?" "Should be on the way," says a second uniform, taking notes for the top sheet of an incident report. "How many times is he hit?" Landsman points to the head wound, then lifts a shoulder blade to reveal a ragged hole in the upper back of the dead man's leather jacket. "Once in the head, once in the back." Landsman pauses, and Pellegrini watches him go deadpan once again. "It could be more." The uniform puts pen to paper.[read more]